


Dye and Embroidery; or, to the Future

by windsroad



Category: Critical Role (Web Series), Critical Role: Wildemount Campaign (Web Series)
Genre: Discussion of amnesia, Gen, I can't believe they're calling themselves that, Mighty Nein, anyway they're all in this but Molly is the Center so he's who I'm tagging
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-26 06:32:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13852056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windsroad/pseuds/windsroad
Summary: Jester asks about the price of Mollymauk's fancy clothing, which leads to a revelation about his backstory - or lack thereof.





	Dye and Embroidery; or, to the Future

“Molly, if this is the _most_ money you’ve ever seen, how much did your clothes cost?”

The group—newly dubbed the Mighty Neins—were travelling along the road, each partaking of their own distractions. Jester had turned with her lips pursed, looking at Molly curiously.

“I am just asking, because I know all those pretty colors and designs can be like, _really_ expensive—okay not _really_ expensive, but like pretty expensive, and you said...” Jester drifted off.

Beau, walking on the other side of Jester, took note. She folded her arms and cocked her head to the side. “Yeah, where did you get those clothes? The dye and embroidery had to cost a bit.”

Molly looked down at himself. His clothes _were_ fancy, he supposed, and he liked them that way. “I found them,” he said. “When my family was being sacrificed to a cult and we escaped, we grabbed these robes along with the swords I use and I’ve had them ever since.” Mollymauk raised his chin, smiled a little shallowly, and tugged the his coat down to straighten it.

Caleb frowned and turned away, attending to the horses.

“So they’re heirlooms, just like your swords,” said Fjord, who nodded along genially. “That’s very... interesting.”

“They are very important to me,” said Molly, hand to his heart. “I’m not really sure much they would cost.”

And they dropped the subject. Molly made a show of looking at the scenery, turning his head all around to see the green of the grass and the trees as the colors just started to turn on the edges.

“Nah,” interrupted Beau. She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t buy it.”

Molly paused and looked at Beau very carefully before shrugging. It had really just been a matter of time before someone called him out. “I just had them,” he said. “The circus bought them, for the show.”

“You just had them, or the circus bought them?” said Beau.

“I thought you didn’t have an act,” added Fjord.

Molly looked quickly between Beau and Fjord. They passed under a grove of large trees, their faces becoming shaded and dark. “I always had them,” Molly said, settling on the choice that was closer to the truth. He pulled out his fortune-telling deck and fiddled with it to avoid looking any of them in the eye. “For as long as I can remember.”

“You said you’d been with the carnival for as long as you can remember,” said Beau, not to be tricked.

“And that dwarf girl said you’d been with them two years,” said Nott. She sat in the cart, on the further side of Caleb, and leaned around and behind him to get a look at Molly.

“Yeah, that is true!” added Jester. She opened her eyes wide and nodded along vigorously. “I thought that was really weird.”

Molly looked up. Everyone was watching him now, even Caleb, though he was trying to make it seem he wasn’t. Molly took a pregnant pause while he tried to find the best way out of the situation.

What did it matter, if they all knew? Because if they knew, he wouldn’t be able to shape their perception of him in exactly the way he wanted, in exactly the way he needed in that moment. Because if they knew, the little control he had of his past would be relinquished.

Mollymauk’s whole life was about keeping up an act, but if he had to do so with the people he was around all the time, he’d get tired fast.

“So maybe all of that is true,” Molly acquiesced.

Beau shook her head. “That doesn’t make any sense. If _all_ of those things were true, then—”

“Maybe that’s all I can remember,” Molly continued. They moved out from under the trees and the sun hit them once again. “Maybe I don’t remember anything else. Maybe I’ve got the past two years, a fancy coat, scars and abilities and no reason why.” He shrugged, like it was no big deal. And it wasn’t.

“Wait, wait, wait,” said Beau, putting her hands out like she was bracing herself. “You only remember the last _two years_?”

“You mean all those stories were lies?” said Fjord, with obvious fake surprise. Fjord hadn’t believed him all along, Molly supposed.

“I mean, they might _not_ be lies,” said Molly. “I don’t really know either way.”

“So, for example… you don’t remember… your mom?” said Jester incredulously.

“Or your father,” added Beau.

“Or your birthday?” said Nott in a small voice.

Molly shuffled through his deck again and pulled the Serpent card, comparing it to the tattoo on his hand as he had time and time again. “Not really,” he said, giving a short laugh. “You can imagine what I thought of myself when I came to and saw… well.” Molly motioned towards his person.

Caleb turned, finally, and gave Molly his perpetual frown, with just a hint of concern between his brow. “Does that not bother you?” he said. “Do you not want to know?”

Molly shrugged and smiled, tucking the deck back into his pocket. He wasn’t sure how truthful or fake he was being, but the looks on his new friends’ faces said they leaned towards fake.

“I’m not really concerned with the past. And I’m not looking to find out,” he said. He pointed two fingers around at the group and stared them down. “So don’t get any ideas, all of you. What I may have been or done isn’t important to me. What I do now is.”

Molly believed that—because he had to believe it. Without a past to hang onto, all he had was the present and himself and the people around him.

And the future.

“I can’t remember any of it, anyway,” he added, with a final shrug.

Molly’s new friends wore a mixture of emotions. Concern, pity, thoughtfulness, calculation. It was Caleb’s look that was most hard to read. He grunted and turned back to the front.

“If only we were all so lucky.”


End file.
